I am so proud of Jay and Christopher for their honest, touching blogs about bisexuality and transgendered people. I would like to talk about a group of people that are NOT LGBT. But, before I do that, I implore you to contact your Senators and ask them to vote yes on the Senate Bill 909 [H.R. 1913], the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Why? This vote is coming very soon and every voice counts. At this very moment, it has become a panic throughout the right wing Christian community. The Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act has been named the Pedophile Protection Act. Websites, such as WorldNetDaily, have made this falsified title look as though it is the actual the name of the legislation.

A hearing on the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, already approved by the U.S. House as H.R. 1913 and pending in the Senate as S. 909, is expected soon in the Senate Judiciary Committee. It’s been described by opponents at the “Pedophile Protection Act,” because majority Democrats in the House refused to approve an amendment specifying that pedophiles would not be protected under the proposal that provides special protections for homosexuals.

By special arrangement through WND, for only $10.95 members of the public can send 100 individually addressed letters to each senator by overnight mail. Each letter is individually “signed” by the sender. The letters ask for a written response and call for opposition to the bill, including by filibuster if necessary.

That’s right folks. For a mere $10.95, you too can send bald faced lies to each senator, asking them not to sign the Hate Crimes Act. WND claims that 4,500 people have already sent such letters and this means that there have been almost half a million outcries against this law. They cannot even do math, they are so used to lying. Why are they doing this? Because it will allow all sorts of things that ARE NOT IN THE ACT. Free speech is protected. Even hate speech is free. Pedophiles are not protected. I’ve realized, when a person is a bigot, they have no need to rely on facts, logic, truth or compassion. Just lies. Tell a lie enough times and people will believe it is the truth. It is hard to fight a group of people that is willing to say anything to support their point of view.

Thanks for sending your email and welcome back. Let’s talk about pedophiles. There is no P in LGBT. In case you aren’t much of one for reading the research that disproves this, I’ll give you the high level summary.

Pedophiles are adults who are sexually attracted to children. It is age related, not gender related. Most male pedophiles who have sexual contact with boys have adult heterosexual relationships.

LGBT people are attracted to adults. The relationships are mutually consenting. I’m sure they have their share of ups and downs, the same as straight people do. That doesn’t make them pedophiles. Pedophiles are NOT welcome in the LGBT community. Let’s start with some of the lies that keep this myth alive.

Homosexuals got homosexuality removed from the list of mental illnesses in the early 70s by storming the annual American Psychiatric Association (APA) conference on successive years. “Guerrilla theater tactics and more straight-forward shouting matches characterized their presence.” Since homosexuality has been removed from the APA list of mental illnesses, so has pedophilia (except when the adult feels “subjective distress”) .

There is a notable homosexual group, consisting of thousands of members, known as the North American Man and Boy Love Association ( NAMBLA). This is a child molesting homosexual group whose cry is “SEX BEFORE 8 BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.” This group can be seen marching in most major homosexual parades across the United States.”

Homosexuals commit more than 33% of all reported child molestations in the United States, which, assuming homosexuals make up 2% of the population, means that 1 in 20 homosexuals is a child molester, while 1 in 490 heterosexuals is a child molester.

I will give Tradition In Action credit for one statement: It is true that NAMBLA is a group of pedophiles trying to ride the increasing tolerance toward the gay community. But the other statements are easily disproved when we look elsewhere. Let’s look at what is probably the least political website out there. WebMD.

The biggest misunderstanding many people have is that pedophilia and homosexuality are one and the same. But to say that all homosexuals are pedophiles, or that all pedophiles are homosexual, is like comparing apples to rat poison. “They certainly are two distinct things,” says James Hord, a psychologist in Panama City, Fla., who specializes in treating sexually abused children.

Hord explains that while some pedophiles may prefer boys over girls, or vice versa, it’s not so much about gender as it is about age. For homosexuals, Hord says, sexual preference is “simply not linked to the age.” If a man, for instance, is attracted to other adult males, he is a homosexual. A man who is sexually attracted to male children is not considered a homosexual: He is a pedophile.

Insecurity at Heart of Pedophilia

As with all things sexual, however, it’s not always so simple. Heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual men and women may become sexually attracted to children even though they’re also attracted to adults. When this happens, it’s usually because of insecurity or stress in an adult relationship, says Anthony Siracusa, a psychologist in Williamstown, Mass., who specializes in treating abused kids and sexual offenders.

These people, Siracusa says, are called “regressed offenders” because they have literally regressed: They lose the social skills they need to deal with other adults, which makes children more attractive to them.

Homosexuality was, in fact, listed as a mental illness in psychiatry’s main reference book, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, until the third edition came out in 1980. This edition included a category for homosexuals who were troubled by their sexuality and wanted to change it. All mention of homosexuality, however, was purged from the manual by 1987.

Groth and Birnbaum (1978) studied 175 adult males who were convicted in Massachusetts of sexual assault against a child. None of the men had an exclusively homosexual adult sexual orientation. 83 (47%) were classified as “fixated;” 70 others (40%) were classified as regressed adult heterosexuals; the remaining 22 (13%) were classified as regressed adult bisexuals. Of the last group, Groth and Birnbaum observed that “in their adult relationships they engaged in sex on occasion with men as well as with women. However, in no case did this attraction to men exceed their preference for women….There were no men who were primarily sexually attracted to other adult males.

Dr. Carole Jenny and her colleagues reviewed 352 medical charts, representing all of the sexually abused children seen in the emergency room or child abuse clinic of a Denver children’s hospital during a one-year period (from July 1, 1991 to June 30, 1992). The molester was a gay or lesbian adult in fewer than 1% in which an adult molester could be identified – only 2 of the 269 cases (Jenny et al., 1994).

What about the mental health of gays and lesbians? Why was it removed as a disorder? The religious right would have you believe that gay rights groups forced the APA to do this. Uhm, yea. First, I was an adult when the APA dropped this and I can tell you that gay people were so far in the back of the closet, they were covered with dust bunnies. There was no LOGO, no out celebrities and all portrayals of gay people, the few that there were, were stereotypical. Second, I’m sure that organizations of highly educated, scientific and medical professionals just cave in to pressure. Does that make sense to anyone?

According to a 1994 statement from the American Psychiatric Association, the change came after decades of research showed that “a significant portion of gay and lesbian people were clearly satisfied with their sexual orientation” and showed no signs of mental illness. [Emphasis added]. “It was also found that homosexuals were able to function effectively in society, and those who sought treatment most often did so for reasons other than their homosexuality.”

“Mental health professionals agree that pedophilia should never be considered normal, because it is truly a disease. None of the things that make homosexuality a normal variation of human sexuality apply to pedophilia.”

So the American Psychiatric Association has analyzed the facts and came to two conclusions. Gay people are normal. Pedophiles are not. So how do these other groups twist the facts? Easy. They assume that any adult male who has sexual contact with an underage boy is gay. Pedophiles also would like for you to believe that their feelings are normal and want to be lumped in with gay people. Many biologists and psychotherapists believe that for many pedophiles, these feelings are permanent and cannot be changed. So how does that make them different from people who are gay? Aren’t we on a slippery slope if we use “how we are born” as the justification for why being gay is acceptable.

Beyond the fact that pedophiles have problems with adult relationships, problems with control and power, part of any relationship has to do with the maturity of the individuals. Children are not willing, consenting adults. They do not have power in situations where they are abused. They are traumatized, often for life and need a lot of therapy and support sometimes just to function.

There are biological causes for many behaviors. Biology alone does not define the behavior as right or wrong. Whether or not the behavior hurts someone is my litmus test. My only test, I judge people by how their actions affect others.